Puzzle People Make Math Magic

Brilliant minds have been challenging people to embrace math for centuries. But one man made recreational math fun and has been inspiring legions of followers for decades.

His name? Martin Gardner. This mathemagician has been transforming frightening formulas into fun.

But recreational math doesn’t just fill free time. It challenges the mind and even informs real science.

The Zebra Puzzle--a famous math puzzle

The following puzzle is a fine example of a detective math puzzle. Based on clues supplied in a narrative, answer a question by applying simple, man-on-the-street logic to the information (not all of it relevant) supplied.

On an odd little street in the town of Somewhere, there are five house in a row. Each house is a different color, each is inhabited by a woman of different nationality, and the owners of the houses also have their differences: each owner has a different pet, prefers a different drink and works in a different profession. A detective, charged with the task of discovering who drinks water and who owns the Zebra, gathered the following information, itemized for your convenience:

1. The Englishwoman lives in the red house.
2. The Spaniard owns a dog.
3. Coffee is drunk in the green house
4. The Ukrainian drinks tea.
5. The green house is immediately to the right of the Ivory house.
6. The engineer owns the snail.
7. The diplomat lives in the yellow house.
8. Milk is drunk in the middle house.
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house on the left.
10. The doctor lives next to the owner of the fox.
11. The diplomat lives next to the owner of the horse.
12. The teacher drinks orange juice.
13. The carpenter is Japanese.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.

Now it’s your job to find out Who owns the zebra and who drinks water.

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